


Michael

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Arrested Development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-01
Updated: 2005-11-01
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael has always been a thorn in Gob's side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Michael

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Carolyn

 

 

 

 

It started when they were little. Michael always got the most praise, the best gifts, the best grades in school... and Gob was left trying to keep up, pretending to be the better man, for his brother's sake, because that's what older brothers do.

Gob spent the better part of the first eight years of his life putting up with this, and he wasn't sure he could take much more of it. There was only so much a boy could handle before he cracked like Michael's Deluxe Toy Car Wash, which Gob accidentally ran over. But Michael got about 30 presents on his birthday; one or two or three broken ones would hardly make the difference. Or five. Gob should have fun on Michael's birthday too. Gob's birthday wasn't for another eleven and a half months, and Gob already had five of his presents taken away. Six, including the plastic life-sized truck he was using to break Michael's toys, and now he really had no way to entertain himself.

So he decided to help Michael out a little, since he had nothing else to do, and he was, after all, the big brother, and he felt that he owed it to him after breaking seven of his presents. He found a stack of presents unguarded as they were cutting the cake in the next room, and starting unwrapping them, taking special care not to break any of them.

He was only halfway through the third one when Lindsay came bounding up to him, her pigtails flopping wildly at her sides.

" _GOB_!" Lindsay screeched in a high-pitched voice. "What are you doing?"

"I'm helping Michael open his presents."

"But you can't do that."

"His stack is bigger than yours."

Lindsay looked over at her own stack, and then back at Michael's bigger pile, and got a hard look in her eye.

"Okay."

She sat down and started ripping away viciously, much quicker than Gob. He actually stopped for a few moments just to watch her. It was quite a sight. With Lindsay's help, they made it through the rest of Michael's stack within a few minutes, and then it stopped being fun.

It didn't matter. When mom caught them, there had been yelling and the maid came, and soon the pile of presents reappeared, looking much more raggedy and patched, and of course Michael had seen most of them, so he had a rather sour and bewildered expression on his face while opening the re-wrapped pile.

Gob was grounded for three weeks after that. They even tried to console Michael by letting him open some of Lindsay's presents, so she was fuming at Gob for weeks afterwards too. The wrath of Lindsay was not a pleasant thing to behold, as the syrup found on his pillow proved.

And it was all because of _Michael._

###

When Michael was 12, he threw up all over Gob's shirt. Their parents found a way to blame Gob for that too.

"You gave that drink to your brother?" His father bellowed, a wild fury in his eyes.

"Don't blame me," Gob said, a scapegoat once again. "He's the one who drank it."

"Do you know what alcohol can _do_ to an eleven-year-old?" His father demanded.

"Yeah, it can make him fall over the banister and hit his head on the coffee table." Gob spoke from experience. "I'm keeping him away from the stairs."

"No...no..." Dad shook his head. "Michael has a _blood_ condition. You can't give him alcohol. It'll break down in his system. He could get seriously sick. We have to get him to the Emergency Room."

Gob was beginning to get a little worried, but he tried not to show it.

"It'll dissolve his blood," Dad continued. "Maybe even burn right through his skin. Oh God, you didn't give him a lot, did you?"

Gob was about to lie, but before he could, a horror unfolded itself on the bed as Michael's arm ripped right off and went shooting across the room.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Gob screamed and tried to run out of the room, but his father grabbed him and held him there.

"Look!" Dad screamed, forcing him to face Michael writhing on the bed. "Look what you've _done_ to him."

Michael's dead arm was squirting blood all over the place and Michael was screaming in pain or... possibly... laughing, in little hiccupping giggles. When Michael sat up, Gob could see a fully attached arm hiding under his shirt.

_Michael._

###

When Gob needed bail money and a ride from jail after being busted by an overly friendly stripper/cop named Candy--which was incredibly hot, if unfortunate--Michael was the first person he thought of to call. Michael had just gotten his driver's license under a month ago, and Lindsay sometimes let him borrow her car. This was good. This was a time for him and Michael to bond, as brothers do. It would finally give them a story, all their own, to laugh and have private jokes about. Michael had tons of those with _Lindsay_.

"I've made a tiny mistake," Gob said into the phone.

"Did you burn down the school?"

"What?"

" _Nothing_ is tiny with you, Gob."

"No, nothing like that, Michael. I just need you to give me a _ride_."

Michael got to the station about 15 minutes later.

"I'll pay you back for this, I promise."

"Yeah, sure, fine, whatever," Michael said, handing over 200 dollars in cash for the bail.

Michael let out a heavy sigh like this was some _huge_ imposition, like it wasn't a little bit cool to see the inside of a police station.

"I'm supposed to be studying for my calculus text."

"Oh, what good is calculus?" Gob said as they walked down the steps and out to the car. "You'll never get girls that way. Hey, did you try that trick I showed you?"

"I prefer _not_ setting buildings on fire."

"Oh, I wasn't busted for arson this time."

"No you were 'getting girls.'"

"Hey! I didn't know she was a hooker," Gob protested.

"She wasn't a hooker," Michael said. "She was a cop."

"I wish you would take this seriously. This is our bonding time, Michael."

"I think you might actually be a sociopath."

"Look, just... don't tell anyone, okay?"

"About you being a sociopath?"

"No! Everybody knows that. About Candy."

"Ah," Michael said. "Yeah, I think I will."

_Michael._

 


End file.
